


A Bar At the End of the 'Verse

by sage_theory (papersage)



Category: Angel: the Series, Firefly, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 19:17:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2240370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papersage/pseuds/sage_theory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in S4 Angel, during "Players". Lorne goes to get his mojo fixed, and this what happens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bar At the End of the 'Verse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jennixen](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=jennixen).



"I got nothin'. Nada. Zippola, sugar cakes. You could belt out the best of Patti Labelle and I'd still be in the dark," Lorne says, crossing his legs in the chair. 

"So when did this happen?" Wanda asks, filling up Lorne's glass again. "Sorry, all I've got on hand is scotch."

Lorne's gracious enough, and the scotch is good enough that he can say, truthfully, "Oh, don't sweat it. Scotch. Seabreeze. It all starts with an s. It all started when I tried to read Angel, and completely missed the psychotic vampire factor. I swear, the aura read like someone who had a soul."

Wanda laughs a little. "The answer to your problem does not lie in this dimension, Krevlorneswath of the Death Wok clan."

Lorne groans, "*Please* tell me that we're not talking about Pylea, because if we are, I think I'm gonna ask for a shot of bleach if you've got it."

Wanda smiles. "No. There is a bar."

Lorne sits up. "Oh, a bar. Wait. A bar as in what'll ya have or a bar as in a review board for lawyers? Or are we talking about a long straight object usually used to keep people out of places. Or a note? Because if we're talking musical bars, I think my day just got a little brighter."

"A bar. A saloon. A tavern, of sorts."

"Well, it's not Patty Labelle. Do they have seabreezes there?"

"I imagine they would," Wanda replies. "It is a bar at the end of the universe. It is the place to go for those who's souls are at loose ends."

Lorne gets out of the chair, puts his glass of scotch down. "Great. So what book you gotta crack to get there?"

"None," says Wanda. She opens her hand to fling what looks like dark blue sand in Lorne's face. 

"Hey, what's with the -"

Lorne does not make it to the floor awake. 

 

****

 

Lorne wakes up on the floor, only not the shag carpeting he'd fallen on. He wakes up on a greasy wooden floor that smells like it's seen it's fair share of blood, sex, magic, and beer. 

With a groan he picks himself up. 

"Talk about your blue moons," he says as he dusts himself off and looks around. He's standing in the middle of a mostly deserted bar. There are two men with their backs turned to him, one wearing suspenders, the other wearing a black military vest of some kind. "Hey, fellas, what's going?"

They both turn around and look very shocked to see him. One draws a gun on him. Lorne puts his hands up. The man in suspenders looks at the man with the gun. 

"That's a mighty obsolete piece of equipment you got there. Who'd you boost it from?" he asks the gunman. 

The gunman gives him a look as though he's slightly insane and goes back to aiming at Lorne. 

"Woah, woah, hold on. You haven't even seen my act," Lorne says, smiling nervously. "Uh. I come in peace?"

"That's gotta be one o' the stranger things I've seen in the 'verse," suspenders-man comments.

"Oh, and you're so Joe Normal," Lorne replies. "Could we put down the heavy artillery for a moment?"

The gunman relents, lays his gun down on the bar. "Sorry. Waking up in unknown places makes me a little jumpy."

Lorne smiles, puts his hands down. "You and me both, compadre. So who's doing the mojo fixin' around here?"

The gunman and the suspenders-man trade glances. 

"Mojo fixin'?" the suspenders man repeats. "Forgive me for bein' a mite behind, but what exactly is a mojo?"

Lorne looks crestfallen. "I knew I wasn't that lucky." Lorne saddles up to a chair next to suspenders-man and says, "Wanda sent me here. She's this big time shaman. Anyway, she said it was a place for souls at loose ends or what not. Then she dusted me in the face with the blue twilight, and here I am."

"I didn't get dusted," the gunman says, looking either confused or left out. "I think I got shot. By the way, my name is Daniel Jackson."

"Mal," says suspenders-man.

"Krevlorneswath of the Deathwok Clan, but please, call me Lorne," Lorne replies. "Well, the lone gunman over there got shot, what's your story, Mal?"

Mal raises an eyebrow. "Not sure as I can rightly say. One minute, I'm on my way to see a man 'bout a ship, next I'm in a fight, then...I'm here."

"Now that we've got that all sorted out, neither of you gents would happen to know if there's a barkeep around these parts? I could use an extra tall seabreeze right about now," Lorne says, looking down the bar both ways. The bar stretches infinite in either direction, which gives him a moment's pause. 

He stares straight into the mirror that backs the shelves. In it he sees Mal, making every effort not to look into it and Daniel Jackson taking his glasses off. 

"All right, let's think about this," Daniel suggests. "I was shot, you were - what did you say happened to you?"

"Dusted," Lorne inserts. 

"Okay, dusted. Which would mean...I have no idea what it means. I got nothing."

Lorne can't help but smile. "Which would be the defining quality of being at loose ends."

"I was shot," Daniel insists. 

"You don't look shot," Mal replies, giving Daniel the once over. 

Daniel checks his stomach. "Apparently I got better." Then Daniel puts his head on his arms on the bar and says, muffled, "I think I'm getting too old for this."

"Funny, I was thinking you don't look near old enough," Mal comments. Daniel raises his head. 

"Thank you," he says politely and a little surprised. 

Mal sighs, turns around on the barstool and gives the place a good look, leans back on his arm against the bar. 

"Got a real Earth that Was feel to it, don't it?" he asks, smiling. 

Lorne and Daniel both sit up straight. 

"Earth that Was?" Daniel asks. 

Lorne looks nervous. "What, did I miss the apocalypse already? And I was looking so forward to all the bloodcurdling screams."

"Apocalypse?" Mal asks, laughing. "What in the name of the wuh duh ma huh ta duh fung-kwong duh wai-shung doh are you two talkin' about? Are you outta your gorram minds?"

"Wouldn't be the first time," Daniel says, in resignation. He leans over the bar, looks both ways, and shouts, "Barkeep! Hello? Anybody?"

They wait. Nothing happens. 

"I think we can safely say the service here sucks," Lorne comments. 

Daniel puts a hand to his mouth, thoughtfully. "Lorne, you said that this was a place for souls at loose ends. You *meant* to come here?"

Lorne shrugs. "Yeah, but I didn't think it'd be this deserted. I guess I was picturing somewhere like Caritas."

Daniel seizes on the word. "Caritas. As in mercy?"

Lorne smiles. "Yeah. Hey. You're only the third person who's ever gotten it."

"At the risk of soundin' stupid, what's Caritas and why am I sittin' in this gos se bar?" Mal asks. 

"I don't know, you were at loose ends," Lorne guesses. "I just came here to get my mojo ungunked."

"What exactly does that mean?" Daniel asks, as though it's important. 

"I'm an empath. People sing for me, and I read their future, their aura," Lorne explains. "Only, since this beastmaster's waltzed into town, I can't read a thing! Nothing! I mean, it's bad enough that we got our collective assi handed to us by the beast, and all I could do was fall through a skylight and bleed at it. Now, the only thing I'm good for is gone. Can you believe it?"

Mal thinks about it. Daniel thinks about it. 

"So you know what this place is?" asks Daniel.

"Well, no. I just know that if you come here, you're at a loose end," Lorne answers. "What did you two come here for?"

"I didn't gorram come here," Mal angrily seethes. "And I'm just about tired of sittin' around."

"You and me both, cowboy, but I don't see any doors to this joint, do you?" Lorne says, inclining his head towards the right, where there is only a solid wall. Mal takes a very good look around. 

There are, in fact, no doors to speak of. No way out. Mal's heart sinks a little. 

"So whatever the answer is, it's in here somewhere," Daniel says.

"And what exactly about this here makes you think there *is* an answer?" Mal challenges. 

"There's always an answer," says a woman's voice behind them. They turn around to see a lovely woman, about in her thirties, mixing a drink in a metal tumbler.

"Answers, yes! We love answers! So how's about being a cupcake and giving us a few," Lorne says, smiling. 

The woman empties the tumbler into a glass, sticks in a paper umbrella and puts it in front of Lorne. 

"Is this what I think it is, because if it is, we might have to get married," Lorne says. He takes a sip and sighs. "You are a peach, honey! What's your name?"

The woman smiles mysteriously. "Call me Jenny."

Daniel leaps upon this opening and says, "Okay, Jenny. I'm Daniel Jackson, this is Mal, and that's Lorne. And we're wondering -"

"What you're doing here?" asks the woman, still smiling that mysterious, intriguing smile. "That's for you to figure out."

"Well, forgive me for sayin' so, but this does resemble a shang-hai'in' an awful lot. Don't think I got the coin to settle up the tab I'm gonna run if you keep me here much long," Mal replies, smiling at Jenny. 

"Oh, drinks are on the house," Jenny tells them. She then puts a key attached to a yellow circle on the bar. "And this is your room. Whenever you feel like turning in, just go through there. But you should probably stay a while. Talk things out."

Jenny points to a door on the far right wall. 

"Now that wasn't there a minute ago, and believe me, I checked," Mal insists, with an embarrassed smile. 

"It's always been there. Long as I have," Jenny replies. Mal, Daniel, and Lorne keep staring at the door. 

"But you've only been here a couple of minutes," Daniel answers. 

Jenny giggles. "You must be the brains of the operation."

She gives him a wink that makes him blush. Daniel turns back towards the door and when he turns around again, Jenny is gone. Leaving only a beer in front of him, something in a strange bottle in front of Mal, and Lorne's seabreeze. 

Mal picks up his drink. "Well, this is not my best day ever."

"Is it ever?" asks Lorne, looking a little miserable. "Great. While I'm stuck here, the apocalypse is going down out there and there's nothing I can do about."

"If it makes you feel any better, I didn't notice an apocalypse before I came here," Daniel tells Lorne. 

"How could you miss it? Rain of fire? Permanent midnight? The Rocky Horror Picture Show going on out there, only without the wholesome crossdressing fun? How could you miss it?" Lorne asks. 

"There wasn't really any fire, I mean there was gunfire, but not really any fire per se," Daniel replies. He turns to Mal. "You?"

"I think I'd've noticed a gorram fire," Mal replies, drinking his drink. 

"So, no fire raining down, no bye-bye Mr. Sunshine?" asks Lorne, confused. 

"Not so much," Daniel confirms. "The last thing I remember was being on P3X-453. Sam had point, Teal'c had our six. Jack screamed, I turned, I got shot, I fell, Jack came running and then I was here."

"What's P3...whatever?" Lorne asks. 

"It's a planet," Daniel replies. "I figure this must be some sort of Ancient technology, except that there wasn't any sign of it on the planet."

"Ancient as that there gun?" Mal laughs. Then there is a silence. 

"So what now?" asks Lorne. "Not that I'm not absolutely loving the chance to hang around doing nothing but I kinda took time out of the apocalypse for this."

"Well, she said talk, so I guess we talk," Daniel suggested, with a shrug. 

"About what?" Mal asks. 

"Us, I guess. Not much else to talk about," Lorne replies, jiggling the ice in his glass.

 

****

 

It is in the middle of Mal talking about some exploit with a man named Jane - and an odd name for a boy, Lorne thinks - that Lorne realizes that he's been nursing his seabreeze pretty solidly for the better part of two or three hours and it's showing no signs of getting any emptier. 

An eternal seabreeze.

It's the kind of thought that feels warm and fuzzy inside. The kind of thought that sits well next to the thought of Mal and Daniel - of Mal's sharp foxy face and Daniel's eyes, beautiful, blue and weary.

He'd like to have them sing for him. But he has to wait patiently for their stories to unravel in the telling. He thinks that Mal might just have a killer baritone if he worked at it a little. And he can definitely imagine Daniel taking a lovely tenored approach to Elton John.

For him, Lorne would suggest Rocket Man, maybe, but that's a little William Shatner and Tiny Dancer definitely has that personal appeal. 

Somewhere around the words 'count the headlights on the highway', Lorne just knows that some beautiful, sparkling piece of his soul would unveil itself. 

Lorne just knows that Daniel's song would be one of those that he'd put in his personal collection of favorites. Songs that he'd sing to himself in his head when he needed a little pick me up, or a little calm me down. 

Mal looks suicidally depressed. 

"Didn't mean a gorram thing," he whispers, fiercely. "They took the valley. Took it all. Laid three regiments in the ground. We had them. Wung bao dahn, we had them. All I need was a little gorram air support and what do those huh choo-shung tza-jiao duh tzang-huo do? They sell us out. Order us to lay down arms. I would've kept fighting! We could have held the valley!"

Mal gets off the barstool and staggers to some chairs. He picks one up and sloppily throws it in his fury. He also manages to throw himself to the ground with the force. Wobbling, he picks himself up on a table and breathes hard. 

"Mal," Daniel says softly, but only his name. Mal looks up, daring Daniel to have anything to say about it. 

"What?" Mal shouts back stumbling. "You don't know anything, dong ma? You don't know a gorram thing!"

Lorne wishes he had his abilities, wishes he could find that piece that Mal is missing, tell him how to get it back. He wants to heal this man, he wants to at least have the option of trying - instead of sitting back with a seabreeze and playing Dr. Phil - which he's not very good at. 

"Dahng rahn," Daniel says, calm and soothing as a horse whisperer. He starts to speak in the language that Mal's been throwing around since they started talking. Mal seems to calm a little. Finally, Daniel comes back to speaking English. "I was lucky, I guess. I won my war. I think."

Mal plops heavily into the first chair he can find and puts his hands to his face, sloppy and ashamed. 

Daniel keeps going. "But we didn't really win, on Abydos. Even after it took us a week to bury the dead, and most of them were boys. Barely older than fifteen, if that. All that, only to find that that Ra was nothing. Ra was the tip of an iceburg we couldn't *begin* to fathom. Because then there was Apophis. Then Ammonet. Then Hathor. Then Seth. Heru'ur. Ba'al. Anubis. They just kept on coming. We put one down, another one rose up to take it's place. Always another one ready to take it's place. I searched every planet I went to for my wife. And in the end, it wasn't enough. I lost her. So yes, Mal, I do know something. I know what it's like to love something and fight for it and lose. What Serenity was to you, Sha're was to me. She was my cause, she was my purpose."

Lorne's throat was tight. He stared solemnly down into the bottomless seabreeze and put his glass down for a second. 

"What do I do?" asked Mal, quietly.

"You find something new," Lorne said. "Hey, look, I'm no war veteran, but I do know a thing or two about hell. Seeing as I was born there. Best you can do is find a way out and hope the other side's better. And for me at least, mostly, it was. Sure, there's been fire raining from the sky, and let's not get started on the amount of times I've been shot or knocked out just this year - but there's music, seabreezes, and the best cows I've ever known."

Mal and Daniel give Lorne a funny look. 

Lorne explains solemly, "Humans. It's what they called them where I'm from. Kept them like slaves, only worse. My mother owned three. She always said I liked them a little too much. One of them was named Torrin. He understood music. See, there's no music in Pylea. People have never even heard of it. But Torrin was like me. He heard music. One day my mother found us singing together. Blew his head off right in front of me. Not really to punish Torrin, more to spite me I think. To spite the music. And that's when I knew. That's when what I was, what I had to do. I had to leave. Took me a long time to figure it out, but once I did, it got better. Thing is, once you know you're in hell, you can start climbing out. Well, I don't know about you gents, but I'm tired and I don't think I'm any closer to finishing this seabreeze than I was an hour ago."

Lorne stood up and took the key from the bar. 

"Probably a good idea," said Daniel, putting down his beer. "I'm starting to hate beer even more than usual."

Mal wobbles to his feet and follows Lorne to the door. They unlock it and it opens into a sparse, dimly lit bedroom with only a large bed - larger than king size - with several pillows on it and a lamp on a table. Mal says something harsh in Chinese.

Daniel rubs his neck. 

"Anybody got a preference for a side?" asks Lorne. Daniel calls right. Mal calls left. Lorne snorts and wearily removes his jacket and puts it on the doorknob. "I guess that makes me monkey in the middle."

Lorne, Mal and Daniel all strip as far as they dare- Daniel to his teeshirt and pants, Mal only bothers to take off his shoes and lower his suspenders. Lorne remains in an unbuttoned silk shirt and his pants. He climbs into the bed and pulls the covers over himself. 

"In the morning, we'll try to find Jenny again," Daniel says. 

Muffled by the pillow, Lorne says, "Sure. In the morning."

Mal and Daniel climb in on either side and Daniel turns the lights out. Lorne is relaxed, but not finding sleep nearly as soon as he'd like. 

Then something warm and clothed meets the back of his thigh and cold feet meet his. Lorne's eyes fly open. 

"Not to be a party pooper, but uh, who's...something is that?" he asks, wiggling his arm. 

"Oh, I think that's me," Daniel says. "My hip."

Lorne thinks about it, says sleepily, "Oh, nice hip. Then who's -"

"Me," Mal confirms. "Not use to sharin'."

"Not that I'm complaining," Lorne says. He moves his arm forward over a warm, flat surface.

Mal then says, "Maybe I been dirt side too long, but that's kinda nice."

"I was thinking the same thing," answers Lorne, feeling very warm all the sudden. He keeps his eyes closed, but the human contact has tingles running up and down his skin. 

Suddenly, Daniel's hand starts moving. 

Lorne's skin is practically on fire. Mal rolls over, towards him. Daniel scoots closer. 

Then there's a hand untucking his shirt, sliding downwards. Lorne has to open his eyes, has to groan. 

"Daniel?" he asks in a soft voice, as though he might wake Mal. 

Mal has a smile in his voice when he says, "Y'all doin' anything sly over there?"

Lorne hears the button on his trousers pop off. "Apparently we are."

"Well, I'm not lookin' to be left out. I think it's whatever shiong mao niao Jenny gave us in there, but this is startin' too look like a real good idea. And I ain't had one o' those in a while," Mal tells them. 

Lorne rolls on his back and finds that immediately, Mal takes the initiative in stripping his own shirt off and deftly stripping to nothing but plain gray boxers. Lorne wastes no time. 

He feels the warm, warm skin beneath his hand, the trail of hair that leads beneath the boxers. He follows it with his fingers and makes Mal gasp a little, and confess that it's been a long time. 

All the while, Daniel has worked Lorne's pants down to his knees. Lorne takes them the rest of the way.

Next thing that Lorne knows, there is a warm, wet, skilled mouth working him into a frenzy. He can't help the reflexive tightening around Mal, can't resist the satisfaction in making Mal gasp again, then moan. 

Lorne feels a song rising inside of himself. A song with the rhythm of pulses and thrusts. A song that feels like Mal's face against his shoulder and Daniel working himself against the bedsheets while his mouth elicits groans and grunts from Lorne. Although, those could be Mal's. Could be anyone's. Everyone's. 

It all starts to mishmash in Lorne's head, starts to run together like harmony, like chords. 

"Run-tse duh fwo-tzoo," Mal grinds out, long and tensely. Hot breath against Lorne's arm feels better than it probably should. 

And Lorne feels it. The magic. The music. Feels Daniel, and can see the vague bluish green aura that surrounds him. Can see the burning umber of Mal. 

When they are spent and satisfied - Mal's head still butting against Lorne's shoulder and Daniel's leg over Lorne's, Lorne thinks to sing. "Count the headlights on the highway...Lay me down in sheet of linen, you had a busy day today...hmm hmm...hmm hmm..."

"Shiny," Mal says, a little ways from sleep.

And like a revelation, Daniel - also not far from the edge of unconsciousness replies, "Yeah. Shiny. See you in the morning."

Lorne closes his eyes and lazily strokes Daniel's hair, which Daniel seems content with. 

And he knows that he will not see them in the morning. He will not see them again. He feels the sorrow, and it is sweet as a sad, sad song.

It is sweet as the sight of a ship that can take Mal beyond the reach of tyranny, far enough into the black that he might come back to himself. 

It is sweet as the surge of discovery when Daniel realizes that he's found the Lost City. 

It is the bitter of losing, of fighting - the bitter of never seeing the Lost City follows on the heels of sweetness sure as night will follow day in the endless tail-chase of time. 

And it is the thing Lorne knows the apocalypse can't touch. The thing he knows that will go on even after the fires and the beasts and the horror. 

It is the music of souls. 

 

****

 

Lorne wakes up to an up close view of carpet fibers. And only the recollection of getting dusted in the face by Wanda. 

Lorne looks up instead of down and sees Angel standing over him with concern. Wonders when Wanda called him, but is grateful nonetheless that she did. 

Around him is the beige of his being, and the bright red veins of the hero he will become. 

"If I asked you to sing, would you?" Lorne asks, drowsy. 

Angel smiles. "I could, but I don't think you'd like it."

Lorne manages to sit up. "Pfft. Please. I've already heard you murder Barry Manilow."

Angel offers a hand to help Lorne up. "Well, I mean, I don't think I necessarily murdered. Okay, so it was kind of a unique rendition -"

Lorne sighs at the condition of his jacket, which is fairly ruined. "All right. Rendition away."

Angel checks to make sure that Wanda really has left the room. Shyly, he starts with a Beach Boys tune that really kind of sounds like nails on a chalkboard, but there it is. The glimmer he's been unable to find - and the terrible truths it contains.

Lorne sighs, rubs the back of his neck and starts to dust off blue powder. "Do me a favor Angelcakes, leave the singing to the singers. You just come up with a brilliant plan to do something about our mystically pregnant faux Cordelia."

Angel stammers. "What?"

"You heard me, hero. I don't think we're dealing with the real Cordelia."

"So you've got your empathy back?" Angel asks. 

Lorne nods. "And my common sense. I mean, would our Cordelia be caught in that beady gypsy of the night number? Please. The queen of color? Even without my empathy, that should've set off some alarms."

"Now that you mention it, it does sound kind of strange." Angel and Lorne head towards the door. Angel says, as they head for the car. "And Lorne? Thanks for sticking with us through this. I know you could've beat it by now, but you didn't. That means something."

Lorne takes the praise graciously and replies, "Hey, I like Los Angeles. I've been to worse places."

And somewhere, even though he can't remember why, Lorne also feels like adding that he's also been to better.


End file.
